FORESTRY NOTES 



Edited by Walter L. Huber 



Extract from Annual Report of Hon. David F. Houston, 

 Secretary of Agriculture 



recreation use of the forests 

 The use of the national forests for recreation purposes continues to ex- 

 tend. Thousands of local recreation centers, public picnic and camping 

 grounds, excursion points, and amusement resorts are being developed. 

 Some of the areas, located near enough to cities and towns to be reached 

 by considerable numbers of persons, serve already the purposes of muni- 

 cipal recreation grounds and public parks. To meet local needs along 

 this line, the department is co-operating with municipalities. These 

 forms of public service can be rendered without difficulty in connection 

 with the fulfillment of the general purposes of the forests. 



NATIONAL forests AND NATIONAL PARKS 



The handling of the national forest recreation resources inevitably 

 raises the question of the relation of the national forests and the na- 

 tional parks. At present there is no clear distinction in the public mind 

 between the two. Both are administered for the benefit of the public 

 along lines which overlap. The parks and forests occur side by side and 

 have the same general physical characteristics — extensive areas of wild 

 and rugged lands, for the most part timbered, with development con- 

 ditioned upon road construction and similar provisions for public use. 

 They differ chiefly in the fact that the attractions of the national parks 

 from the recreational standpoint are more notable. Yet this is not always 

 true. Several of the parks are inferior in their natural features to por- 

 tions of the forests. The need of drawing a clear distinction between 

 national parks and national forests and of a definite policy governing 

 their relation is increasingly evident. Parks are being advocated where 

 the land should stay in the forests, while elsewhere areas which should 

 be made parks continue to be administered as forests — for example, the 

 Grand Canon of the Colorado. 



A national park should be created only where there are scenic features 

 of such outstanding importance for beauty or as natural marvels that 

 they merit national recognition and protection and, on this account, have 

 a public value transcending that of any material resources on the same 

 land — such areas, for example, as those now comprised in the Yellow- 

 stone and Yosemite parks and in the Grand Canon National Monument. 

 The areas should be large enough to justify administration separate 

 from the forests and the boundaries drawn so as not to include timber, 

 grazing, or other resources the economic use of which is essential to the 



